Many startups start reaching out to investors before they know how to make a sound and compelling investment case for their business, and how to articulate that. Often, even strong entrepreneurs with good ideas never get a foot in the door or catch an investor's attention because they have not been able to present a compelling case to investors.

This book is designed to help founders understand what they need to be prepared with to get interest from investors.

For a startup to be successful, several things have to go right. But for it to not succeed, just one of those many things has to go wrong.

The risks are stacked up against you. This book’s attempt is to help entrepreneurs think through different aspects of their business, so that they do not miss out on anything that will need to work in sync to give the startup a better chance of success.

The more you think through the different aspects, the more you discuss with people, and the more you are able to get validation on your assumptions, the better your chances of success.

Founder www.applyifi.com - Business Mentor. Ex Head of Operations of Indian Angel Network and Asia Director TiE.

On a mission to create 100,000 entrepreneurs.

Prajakt is the founder of Applyifi, an online investor pitch deck and assessment report platform for startups, and founding partner of The Growth Labs - a platform that helps mid-sized companies access advice from super-senior industry professionals.​

The Applyifi scorecard reviews a startup's investment and business readiness on 36 key parameters that investors assess your venture on.

It gives startup founders actionable inputs to sharpen their business plans and investor pitch deck.​

I have often heard senior professionals tell entrepreneurs that they wish they had the guts to...

A big thank you to...

All the entrepreneurs whose stories and my interactions with them have helped shaped this book.

All my mentors who provided me their perspectives that helped me sharpen mine. Most importantly among them Raj Desai, Sridar Iyengar and Pravin Gandhi whose contributions to my life have been invaluable.

All investors who believed in me and my co-founder when we were building Orange Cross. They lost money in my venture, and yet they encouraged and supported the honesty and passion with which we pursued our dreams. We remain eternally indebted to people like Sandeep Sinha, Rohit Bhayana, Sridar Iyengar, Pravin Gandhi and Ashutosh Garg whose support in the low days of our entrepreneurial journey kept us going.

My brother Bakul whose life journey should be an inspiration to everyone.

Vanya, my daughter, who is the reason for whatever I do in life.

Most importantly for this book, to Ritika, who has tolerated my working style for long, and who has read and re-read the draft of this book several times. If you like the message in the book, it is because of Ritika’s inputs and editing to make the messaging sharper.

And of course, what I am and who I am is because of the values and experiences I got from my parents when I was growing up.